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A friend whose band, Panorama Jazz Band, often plays at synagogues around the city, recommended I check out Shir Chadash because he said the community there is vibrant and warm.

This is how Tin and I ended up there last Sunday for the reading of the Megillah – the story of Esther and her foolish husband (the King of Persia) and evil Haman who wanted to kill all Jews – which is celebrated in the story of Purim (a holiday where Tin said “we sell gifts to the needy” – you know what he meant.

Panorama provided the soundtrack for the reading, the children all dressed in costume and we danced and twirled noisemakers every time Haman’s evil name was mentioned in the story then we ate little cookies shaped like his ear (hamantaschen).

There have been big loops in my life where I’ve been at the precipice of a new undertaking. The first came in 1989, having gone back to complete my bachelor’s and having told my employer (a law firm) that I would like to move to a four-day a week schedule in order to have time to write. Yes, I took a pay cut. I was living on General Pershing Street in uptown New Orleans renting a half a double with a camelback and small garden with a large pecan tree in the back. It was a period in my life where I felt I had time and I had the ability to frame what would come next.

I had divorced my first husband and just gotten a puppy, Samm Lightning – who went on to be my companion for 14 years. I had begun working on longer pieces of fiction and more importantly working on myself. Then one day as if to provide a metaphor, the kitchen cabinets all slipped off the wall on their own volition and shattered all of the dishes I had been given as a wedding gift.

My transformation was complete.

I moved to Spain with my second husband, which led me on an odyssey that ended in San Francisco where within months I met my third husband and a new chapter of life began. None of this was on my story board. I had intended to find a place eventually in the French Quarter to live, work and write alone.

In 1995, I began my second new undertaking. Once married for the third time, I longed to be back in New Orleans and created an opportunity to do just that. I visited an architectural firm that had doing work with my husband’s San Francisco firm and introduced him to them in absentia. When we returned for a visit to New Orleans together, I sealed the deal – or rather he did. New Orleans’ romantic allure aligned with a juncture in my husband’s architectural career and made this idea more compelling than you might imagine.

My return to New Orleans lasted ten months and included a broken down Saab 900S, two cross country moves, a new puppy name Arlene Starr, and the reemergence of my panic attacks. In no time at all, I found myself back in San Francisco writing a new chapter of my life. I had now decided to be the Madonna of fiction writers and I spent my free time translating Chekov into English, writing novels, and starting my own writing group. Meanwhile, my work took me into the world of finance and it is because of this slight jog to the left in my work where my version on my story board and real life diverged yet again.

I helped build a company in the financial industry that was riding the dizzying heights of the 90’s and I rode that wave into my return to New Orleans a decade later, and three months shy of the 2005 Federal Flood, and this chapter included the building of the LaLa, the ensuing sad and numbing divorce, the death of my mother, the adoption of my son, the loss of my job and my hair, and a realization that change was not finished with me.

Yesterday, in the gloaming, on my knees in the garden I had just created – I was planting the nasturtiums that will glide along the top of the earth and I thought about my story board, about where I am now. Towering behind me is a burned out house with bullet holes in it that I’m contemplating as an investment for my future, to my left was a wee sidelong shadow of the new puppy, Stella, who stole my heart after much deliberation on my part, while housed inside of me is a book bursting from my seams, a new work path opening up, a heart that is finally healed from one too many heartaches, and my hands are deep into the terrain of my living narrative [yet again].

Freeze Frame

I am creating a new story board even though I know real life is about to intervene.

Now that I am moving more into vegetarianism, gluten-free, and possibly even vegan, I get a puppy who is a carnivore. Stella (the puppy) is chewing her way through my life – claiming the extra hour of sleep I need in the morning, the downtime I require to rest from the juggling of work and parenthood, and yesterday, a pair of brown leggings were added to her list.

A friend recommended nutria strips to give her something to chew on. The pet shop down the street recommended pig ears, which gross me out. Although I was visiting Dr. Bob’s shop the other day to pick up a donation for Waldorf’s silent auction and he fed his Catahoula a pork bone. I turned my nose up and he said, “She’s Jewish, but still eats pork.” Ugh. But after trying everything to get Stella to chew on a toy rather than me and my harmony, I relented and got her a pig’s ear, which has kept her satisfied (for the most part).

I was having dinner with a friend last night and he suggested a bully stick – a bull’s penis – because that is what his dogs have liked. It’s all a great conspiracy to turn me more fully into a vegetarian – I’m sure of this.

Meanwhile, today this friend is bringing me a pen and a smaller more portable crate, so that I can start taking control of my life and Stella’s schedule. She has begun to dominate even the smallest part of my day – I found myself having my coffee on the cold kitchen floor – it was then I knew that I needed to remind myself there is me and her, me and her. And me has needs too. Great needs that are not being met!

I’ve mourned my dogs and realized I was also mourning who I was with my dogs. Arlene’s death took its toll of me, and I imagined I would never bond with another animal after her.

Recently, I ran into a old friend at the new Whole Foods – he had just lost his third dog and we spoke about how hard it is for us, those they leave behind. And he referred me to a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Spring and Fall” (1880)- a musing on mortality:

To a young child

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow’s springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

It is Rachel I miss – the one Arlene shared her life with.

Years ago, I danced with a woman, a colleague of mine who was a few years older than me, and she said, “After turning 50, I regretted not adopting a child.” Although I have regrets, I don’t have that one. You make a choice in life to keep your heart open, to keep letting people and creatures come in, and some of them form bonds forged in steel and some are inked in kryptonite – but the thing is, you don’t know, until you have already opened the door, who or what awaits.

And still I open.

Today, Stella came to join the Dangermond family. My friend said puppies, and I said no; my friend sent me a photo of the puppies, and I said, hmmmm. The mother had one blue and one brown eye like my Arlene; the puppy I spotted had the coloring of both Samm and Arlene:

Six puppies born to a Catahoula with a brown and a blue eye, six different looking puppies, and I spotted Stella right away – the foster parent joked that she looked like a Bernese Mountain Dog, but she looked more like Samm and Arlene when they were puppies:

I said I would go see her and decide.

The decision was made before I arrived. Today we welcome Stella into the Spirit House with open arms and heart. Heidi was visiting so she got to meet her, mouth her, sniff her and lick her as well.

Not everyone loves babies and puppies – but I do – babies and puppies bring uncertainty into our lives and remind us once again that we have the profound capacity to love.

One thing about motherhood, especially when your child is young, is it does not leave a lot of time for writing or rather it seriously crimps the ability to reflect then write then rewrite.

I find myself in a conundrum where I have been before – it is walking a delicate balance between writing for sustenance and writing for substance. I am taking on jobs where the pay is skimpy because I’m chasing the bills. A friend of mine was here the other night and he said as an artist that is the worst place to find yourself in because inevitably you will take work that pays before you will do work that has meaning.

So I’ve carved out time to write my book and I post on my blogs as often as possible – sometimes just posting photos or a quick status update. I feel strongly that posting on social media robs my blogs of their rhythm and thought process, and yet I do it. Yesterday, I applied for an Amtrak writer in residency. And for that reason, I evaluated my social media currency and found it wanting. I tweet about race and parenting, I write about it, I tweet about Tin, me and New Orleans, I write about a woman’s self-actualization and now the double whammy of motherhood thrown into that mix. I think about media and I write about it (along with other industries), and tweet about it.

I ask myself constantly, am I doing enough? And the answer is always no.

A serious writer would eat her young? Right? Write? Yesterday, my five year old decided to act like a two year old and so I spent my day, with laryngitis mind you, being the ENFORCER. I plucked him out of the booth at Houston’s and dragged him to the car rather than sit through an angry meal. I put him in time out in his room after he refused to pick up one of the many toys strewn throughout this house. And then I put him to bed without a book after he emptied two full bottles of shampoo and conditioner into the bathtub. Really, I was on the verge of gnashing my teeth since I couldn’t scream out having lost my voice. And then I saw this, a photograph of a structure (or sculpture, someone compared it to an Erik Johnson piece) he built in kindergarten – the expression of it took my breath away.

I had watched the documentary about Alice Walker, where her daughter’s rift with her is brought to the fore [was she a negligent mother?] – they are in a public standoff – a writer will forsake her family to work on what matters. What matters?

Sunday, on the way to take Tin to a movie for him – ahem – Tin was fussing in his carseat and I spotted a riot of yellow wildflowers lining the canals along Clearview Parkway – vernal pools of the south – and I said look, look, at the beautiful yellow wildflowers! He continued to fuss and we dipped around an overpass, and came upon another swath of bright mustard yellow and he said, look, LOOK, there’s more!

I desperately need a writer’s retreat to push through my book – Amtrak, please answer my prayers – and I also have to constantly remind myself to trust the process. If I have to growl at my cub for shooting the dog with the bow and arrow (sucker tips, not points, people, please) or for leaving his room and house a wake of half broken toys, and for not showing good manners in a restaurant (he told me later he wasn’t hungry, harumph) or for emptying out the contents of expensive hair products, then so be it.

Sticky notes, posters, chalk board writing, journals surround my space to remind me how to live, how to be, how to trust the process. Just two days ago, I assumed a new way to greet each morning by saying: today something wonderful is going to happen – and for this reason alone, I will spare his young life.

Okay – now hail the week that seemed like a rising mountain. From Endymion in my front yard to a birthday party of five year olds in my back yard, this has been a week. I woke Saturday morning with a fever and a headache and Tin said, “Are you not going to come to my birthday party?” I looked at him through the slit I was making with the covers over my head and said, “Give me thirty minutes.”

Then it was up and at ’em – there was food to make, chairs to assemble, balloons to buy, drinks to ice down, and a party to put on to celebrate Tin turning the big 5. My parents always made a big deal of our birthdays, and I am following their tradition. My finances may have dictated a more meager gathering, but Tin takes after me in this regard – he wanted everyone to come – and while we couldn’t have everyone, we had some and then some.

And at the end of the day, Tin crawled into the fetal position in his bed and cried his eyes out, “I WANT MY FRIENDS. I LOVE MY FRIENDS” then fell sound asleep.

Yep, near hysteria is the end to a great birthday party.

My gluten free cake didn’t survive being dropped on the floor, but I made a yummy salted caramel frosting from my friend’s recipe. Yep, it wasn’t pretty, but it tasted good and there was absolutely nothing left at the end.

I was highly impressed by the home-made cards and especially this one that took a lot of time:

All in all, we passed us a good time, and now mommy is dead, done, stick a fork in me. This morning, I woke with laryngitis and a deep need to stay in bed for the next five years.

I do have this to say about that – backyard birthday parties rock.

Today is Tin’s fifth birthday. He woke and repeated what he had told me last night, “I will turn five in my heart.” Today is another day for me to celebrate being his mother.

It rained all day yesterday so his trampoline is a little soggy and it is still cold outside, but it is warming up and soon we’ll be jumping away in the back yard.

Photo by Marc Pagani

A woman’s life is her own
until it is taken away
by a first, particular cry.
Then she is not alone
but a part of the premises
of everything there is:
a time, a tribe, a war.
When we belong to the world
we become what we are.

excerpt from Poem for a Daughter by Anne Stevenson

Yesterday, Endymion, one of the largest parades rolled down a block away from our house. There is always a sense of excitement anticipating a Carnival parade here in New Orleans, but Endymion is no ordinary parade – it’s a super krewe with a large following.

When I first moved into the Spirit House I instantly missed the front porch of the LaLa and kept thinking of how I was going to have a porch built – especially when there was so little space between the house and the sidewalk. I spent a good portion of the days I’ve lived in the Spirit House trying to design that porch into our lives.

Then Endymion came yesterday, and we got all the folding chairs we have and set them in front, and so did my neighbors, and the other neighbors with their newly built porch, well, they came down and set up their folding chairs on the sidewalk, and then the other neighbors, who have a porch, were straining to see, so they came down and spent the afternoon on their stairs. Because yesterday, was a day to be outside, and to be up close to the action – a touch away from all the costumed revelers walking to and from the parade.

A box full of colored chalk and markers kept the children busy under our legs while us adults sat and enjoyed the spectacle of a beautiful day, drinking wine, eating moros y cristianos, and chatting away about this and that. When the parade began to roll, you could hear the thunder of the marching bands and the crowd going nuts – and friends brought Tin with the other kids back and forth to the parade, returning with armfuls and bagfuls of booty – beads, frisbees, lighted sticks, stuffed animals.

All the while, I sat in my camping chair – like Mother Goose – watching the parade come to me.

Every one loves a parade, and this was the best parade I never went to.

My 15-year-old friend boldly sent a letter to her crush and said simply, “I have a crush on you.” The response was awkward – “We’re cool.” I told her, you cut through the ambiguity – you’re brave – if he remains ambiguous, that’s him. Do you.

I went to a wedding last night – a man was marrying his dream bride – he wore black and she wore white. I had hoped to dance, instead I found myself deep in Spanish with the sexy Cuban drummer and in the throes of speaking my own truth to a friend (emboldened by the 15-year-old) and then, as an afterthought, flirting casually with the doppelgänger who sported grey dreds. I came home and found Heidi had ripped apart my beautiful robes hanging on the back of the door. The green satin one from Shanghai; the orange one with quince flowers from San Francisco. Thunderstorms drive her to madness.

I lay in bed with my own madness and read Jane Hirshfield — she came rushing at me across the pages as if she had been my date and saw what I saw and heard what I heard and thought what I thought.

I HAVE NO USE FOR VIRGINS

I have no use for virgins–
give me the cup
with a chipped lip,
whose handle is glued back on
and whose glaze is dark from use.
Let many men and women
drink from us before
we drink–
I taste their breasts on your breast,
you cover their blaze between my legs.

***

AUTUMN QUINCE

How sad they are,
the promises we never return to.
They stay in our mouths,
roughen the tongue, lead lives of their own.
Houses built and unwittingly lived in;
a succession of milk bottles brought to the door
every morning and taken inside.

And which one is real?
The music in the composer’s ear
or the lapsed piece the orchestra plays?
The world is a blurred version of itself–
marred, lovely, and flawed.
It is enough.

I took this photo in Qingdao – they have a wedding day and brides + grooms go to the waterfront to be photographed.

This morning as I was counting, ONE [pause] TWO [pause] for Tin to come brush his teeth and let me pick his hair, I was in mother mode and when he came running before I got to THREE [thank you 1 2 3 Magic] I took a deep breath and began putting the creme in his hair.

I muttered under my breath, “Your hair is getting long.” And then I said, “Is my hair getting long?” Joking with him.

And he smiled (first smile of the morning). “You don’t have any hair.”

I know, I told him, but I used to have long beautiful hair.

“You ARE beautiful,” he said.

And that is why today I dedicate to Tin for starting my day off right.